Summer King, Winter Fool by Lisa Goldstein

Author:Lisa Goldstein
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781497673632
Publisher: Open Road Media

Nine

“WAR BELONGS TO SCATHIEL,” OSA, one of the actors, said. “Everyone feels cold when war comes.”

“No—war is hot and fierce,” Tamra said.

“Not for the dead,” someone said. “No one is as cold as the dead.”

“I was never so cold as in this last war,” Val said. “Scathiel had this one, if none of the others.”

The actors sat before the hearth in Pebr’s cottage, along with Val and Narrion and Taja. Pebr had scowled when he had seen them coming, and had hurried off to the cottage of a friend. He had done this every night the actors had visited; his dislike for the court of Etrara had, if anything, grown stronger in the months Val had been away.

Val sat on the floor near Taja and stretched his legs out in front of him, grateful that the pain had gone. Mathary had given him some salve for his wounds and they had healed quickly.

“And poetry?” Taja asked. “Who does poetry belong to?”

Val looked at her, pleased. She had never spoken at one of the gatherings before. Osa and a few of the others were looking at her as well; probably they hadn’t expected a daughter of the fisher-folk to understand court games.

“Poetry?” Osa said. The actor had pale brown hair that fell to her shoulders and curled back toward her face. She wore large round spectacles that she removed before every performance; now they glinted in the firelight. “I don’t think—”

A slightly puzzled tone had entered her voice, as if she was uncertain how she had come to address one of the lower rungs. In fact, Val thought, annoyed, Taja’s question had been well within the rules of the game.

“Yes, poetry, very good,” he said quickly. “Poetry belongs to—to both the gods, of course. Poetry helps us ascend—”

Three or four people cut him off with cries of “Unfair! Unfair!” The point of the game was to assign each attribute to one god or another.

“Poetry is like music—”

“Not at all—poetry is more like magic—”

Val watched them as they argued. He had never seen before how unimportant these games were, how ineffectual all the court was. Etrara had fallen, and still they danced the old measures as though nothing had happened. But then he had done the same; he had even discussed virtue and ambition with one of the barbarous Shai. For the first time he realized that that man was dead now, that he would have no more discussions on any subject again.

How could he have thrown in his lot with these people, all glitter and trifles? How could he have pursued Tamra, and all the other women before her? That day when he had come back to Tobol An he had seen Taja for what she was, and it seemed to him that since then he had seen everything clearly, without pretense. He had never before understood the court’s unconcern for others, their disregard for those who stood lower on the ladder. Taja had shown him more of the world in one season than he had learned in all his years in Etrara.

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